


the one with the white suit and the red beanie

by Apalapucian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, F/M, Jily Modern AU, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Modern Marauders (Harry Potter), james has time and shit friends, jily au, lily and remus are art majors who share some classes, peter cries, sirius owns a coffee shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 13:05:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16018502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apalapucian/pseuds/Apalapucian
Summary: “so lily needs a model for this photog project thing, and i suggested you.”“why?” asked james, burying his face into remus’s back because remus’s shirt was so nice. it was soft and smooth and smelled like lilacs and remus is just – generally very huggable. also james was very dizzy and needed to close his eyes. it wasn’t because the mention of lily made him blush on this particular level of inebriation. not at all. it wasn’t because he needed to hide.alternatively:james agrees(?) to be a model for lily's photography class project, and jeanne, james, and lily all fall one way or another in the duration of it.





	the one with the white suit and the red beanie

**Author's Note:**

> i reblogged this 'send me a number and a ship and i'll write you a fic' prompt post on my [tumblr](http://apalapucian.tumblr.com/post/178141001505/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) and [lilyvans](http://lilyvans.tumblr.com) sent me jily in #25, which was the line "i can't believe you talked me into this". title inspired by friends titles because i couldnt think of something poetic for this. i think it suits the vibe anyway. happy reading!! x

the best day of james potter’s life starts feeling like it’s the worst, and he has nothing to blame for it except himself.

well, maybe remus.

last week, they got drunk at peter’s house at 4 PM, straight after class. on a wednesday. if someone asks why – which, unlikely, by the way, since everyone who knows them has over time just gotten used to the fact that they do random shit like get plastered at 4 PM on a weekday _just because –_ they were celebrating peter finally managing to use a can opener all by himself without asking anyone or breaking any bottles. or bones, like that one time. it was then, seven ogden’s and three cartwheels in the pettigrews’ living room in, that remus sat on james’s lap and announced, “so lily needs a model for this photog project thing, and i suggested you.”

“why?” asked james, burying his face into remus’s back because remus’s shirt was so nice. it was soft and smooth and smelled like lilacs and remus is just – generally very huggable. also james was very dizzy and needed to close his eyes. it wasn’t because the mention of lily made him blush on this particular level of inebriation. not at all. wasn’t because he needed to hide.

“because i am an excellent wingman.”

“no one’s asked me for anything.”

“volunteer.”

“why.”

“because – i don’t know. she’s probably too shy to ask.”

“lily evans is not shy.” she isn’t. she’s beautiful and kind and outspoken and can speak three languages fluently. sure, her latte-making skills don’t come even remotely close to sirius’s, as attested to by the number of lattes james ordered from her when she worked at the coffee shop last summer – the summer james fucking fell in love with her – but. lily evans. not shy. just. the love of james’s sorry life, maybe. he’d take her mediocre lattes over sirius’s if it meant waking up to it every day for the rest of his life.

damn, remus’s lilac detergent smell really squeezed all the schmaltz out of him.

“how do you know?” asked remus.

“she’s not… she just doesn’t… peter, are you _crying_?”

remus slid off james so he could lie on the floor and see peter at a better angle. peter was standing on the coffee table indeed sniffling over something on his phone. “pete.” remus’s hand patted peter’s ankle. “what’s the matter?”

“have you seen this video of sirius?” said peter, crouching down, nearly dropping the phone on remus’s face.

it was a video of sirius with a pair of sweatpants over his head, his hands in tennis shoes, a white t-shirt where trousers should be, and barefoot – running around the room with his arms up so that he looked like he’s doing some crazy handstand stunt. it looked so fucking stupid. lily was momentarily forgotten then, for they were all too busy dying from laughter.

but apparently remus sent lily a message that night anyway, because james woke up the next morning to a massive hangover, sweatpants for a shirt and a shirt for trousers, and a text from him that said: _lily and the others will be expecting you at the plaza next saturday. not this sat, the NEXT one. she says thank you so much and she’ll make you five of those lattes you “”””like so much””””. YOU’RE WELCOME_

james replied, _thanks for not telling her it’s not the lattes i liked, youre th ebest,_ and promptly fell back asleep. he really should have reread the text message once he was sober.

 

—

 

 _now_ he’s standing in the middle of the pentagon-shaped kiosk in the city plaza, his white hoof shoes click-clacking every time he takes a step, and his all-white suit sparkling so agressively under the slightest light. he can see his gigantic shoulder pads in his periphery literally every second. it’s horrible. this is horrible. the boys are never going to let him live this down. it’s a saturday and the plaza is packed with what feels like the entire population of the continent. around him, lily _and the others,_ which is all of her photography class, are snapping photos of him from every angle. turns out they rented the whole of the kiosk for half a day for this project, the latter half a choice between the city library and the church. hopefully he gets the library. hopefully that shoot would allow him an outfit change.

also? jeanne marchbanks is standing on the thin balusters bordering the kiosk to get her shots of james, and it’s giving james anxiety. his eyes keep darting to her every two minutes in case he needs to run to her if she falls.

when he gets a break, he walks over to her and says, “hey. hi! hello. don’t climb up the balusters later, maybe? it’s giving me a lot of mini-heart attacks. you could really hurt yourself.”

jeanne doesn’t even look up from her laptop screen. she’s been transferring the raw shots real time. “my head is a marshmallow,” she says flatly. “it’s not breakable.”

james sighs. you’d think being around remus lupin for a considerable amount of time would have gotten him used to the assortment of baffling shit art majors say, but no. he lets it go and goes to sit at a corner of the kiosk, trying to make himself as invisible as the sequins and shoulder pads allow. _i can’t believe you fucking talked me into doing this,_ he texts remus.

_mr. lupin is preoccupied atm_

then, _but he says no one talked u into doing anything_

then, _he also says you’d do anything for lily evans anyways_

james texts back, _pete?_

 _sirius,_ the other corrects. _nice suit ur a star 12/10 would def recommend to peter’s grandmama_

he looks around the plaza at once, but his friends are nowhere to be seen. he sends a couple of question marks.

 _it’s called social media, prongs,_ sirius explains. _dont get into character too much. remember which decade u r in_

james rolls his eyes. _where’s moony what is he preoccupied with?? this is his fault. i demand accountability_

sirius replied with _, laughing his ass off at ur photos ofc_

james pockets his phone and mentally summons a kraken to come eat him.

he hears someone say, “hey, can we take off his glasses?” and james wants the kraken to eat all of these people’s goddamn cameras as well. for a good extra crunch.

“um, i think it’s – ” lily begins to say – james is not looking, but he’d recognize her voice in any crowd – but then she gets cut off.

“the specs don’t really go with the concept,” the other insists. “hey, porter, can you take off the glasses?”

“it’s _potter,_ ” says james bitterly, and he doesn’t realize until after that lily also spoke. she said the same thing. _it’s potter._ she’s glaring at whoeveritis right now.

james removes his glasses anyhow, looks around for some place to put it on –

“here, let me.” lily’s hand is in front of him. she’s smiling kind of sheepishly, and – it’s _embarrassing_ to admit _,_ james knows, but really – suddenly everything else doesn’t seem so bad.

“thanks.” the world blurs out when he looks around again. actually? this is better. it will feel less like he’s being watched and more like he’s just dreaming. there’s just no way he’s wearing an all-white sparkling suit/stetson hat/hooves ensemble in front of his biggest crush to date in reality.

said biggest crush is walking away, from what james can gather with his very limited eyesight, making her way back to a group of girls who are swapping their dslr settings or whatever. and he gets possessed, maybe, because he doesn’t know _exactly_ why he calls her last name out just then, and says, when she turns to him, “my poses okay?”

she laughs a bit. “what?”

“my poses. are they okay? should i do something else? i’m sort of just… standing.”

“no, you, um. you look good. don’t worry.”

james really hopes the screaming is just solely in his head right now. “right. thanks.”

he makes a ridiculously exaggerated pose a bit later. whoeveritis, who’s taking photos right in front of him, pointedly straightens up from his concentrated-on-taking-a-photo crouch on the floor. james also hears a few girls giggle from his right. he catches lily’s tinkle of a laugh among them, and he smiles.

really. it isn’t so bad.

 

—

 

in the city library, he gets to be a hipster boyfriend.

at least, that’s what sirius texts him he is after they get updated somehow of the wardrobe change. they let him wear his glasses, as it fits the whole beanie/long-sleeved polo/sweater vest thing he currently has going on. there are way less people here, too. it’s not even the whole photography class now, because the others have a separate shoot at the church. james feels more relaxed, here. relatively. he even dares to make smoldering faces at the cameras once or twice. he especially flexes when he catches a flash of auburn red anywhere in his peripheral vision. no reason.

jeanne marchbanks _does_ fall at some point during the shoot. she was balancing herself on top of poorly stacked books – not even hardbound ones, really, what was she thinking? james hears her little high-pitched squeak and he just runs for it, catches her and sets her upright without much effort. honestly, he’s been watching her climb up her flimsy little makeshift towers all day, waiting for her to fall since _morning_. this – this is an exhale moment. _now_ maybe she’ll stop doing circus acts on precarious surfaces and james’s heart will stop racing because of it. 

(he has enough to make him feel like that as it is: lily handing him back his glasses after the kiosk shoot, her fingers grazing his palm, her hand lingering there for a heartbeat more than necessary. lily tucking a strand of her hair beneath her ear as she thanked him, for like, the hundredth time that day. lily smiling at him when he assured her it’s really fine. lily sitting next to him in the van on the way here from the plaza, her head thudding on his shoulder. he’s not sure if she was asleep, it was a short ride, or she just – james doesn’t know. james _doesn’t know_. lily fetching him his complementary lunch and eating with him outside before they went inside the library, their knees knocking as they sat on the grass. lily laughing at his lame knock knock joke on the word ‘kiosk’. lily so so close while she adjusted his glasses so that they rode a little further down his nose. she smells strangely so much like remus’s shirt from the other wednesday evening. lily staring at him even when they’re not shooting, maybe thinking of better angles, or something. lily nodding to something whoeveritis just said, deep in thought, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. lily absently pouting while she tweaked the settings of her camera. lily – )

“alright?” he asks jeanne.

jeanne nods. “marshmallow,” she says, pointing at her head. and then, looking at james wide-eyed, she says, “wow, you actually look good.” she snaps a photo of him. james blinks against the sudden flash. then she turns to the group around her before james can think of anything to say. some people’s camera-laden hands are still held out as if to catch her. “did anyone get that? when he caught me?”

 

—

 

james gets to keep the beanie. it’s his favorite shade of red and does a good job of cutely hiding his mop hair,  so he asked someone if he could have it, and they said yes. he’s in his own clothes now, plus the beanie; leaning against a table, watching, a bit awkward, as the class starts packing up their stuff. he’s not sure if he ought to help.

he goes over to lily. she’s the only one he really knows in the class, okay? she was the group’s –  _contact_. she was the one who got him the gig. no other reason.

“hey. need any help?”

she looks up. she’s mostly finished packing now – no, she _is_ finished, she literally just has to sling her bag on her shoulder – so that was a dumb question. still, she smiles at him. “i’m good, thank you.”

“alright.”

“no, i mean, _thank you_. really. for saying yes to this.”

“oh. nah, that’s okay. it was… okay. fun. it was fun.” _what_ , james thinks desperately.

she chuckles. “was it?”

“honestly, no, not really. but it wasn’t because… it was just not my thing, i guess. more sirius’s. or peter’s.”

“ah.” a couple of people say goodbye to her, so she says bye back and waves. and then, back to james, “damn, and here i was hoping to book you for another thing.”

“yeah?” he picks up a book from a shelf just to have something to do with his hands. it’s just them left in the library now.

“we need a model for this outreach program next month.”

in his head, james kicks himself twice. in real life, he tilts his head and rubs the back of his neck. “i guess i could, uh…”

“a nude model.”

james chokes on dust. the library is very dusty. all these old books.

lily laughs. “i’m kidding. calm down.”

“geez,” james manages, when he’s done being embarrassing.

“are you going to check that out?”

“what?”

“the book?”

james looks down. the book he took is an old version of the fucking kama sutra.

scratch that. he’s _never_ done being embarrassing.

“no, i am _not_ checking it out.” he puts the book back in the shelf, willing himself not to go very red. it’s never worked, but he won’t stop trying.

“you sure?” lily asks, biting her lip to keep a laugh in. she does that a lot. bite her bottom lip.

“oh, i’m sure, yeah, definitely.” he puts his hands on her shoulders, steers her around so she’s facing the other way, adjusts his criss-crossed arms, and starts pushing her towards the exit. “let’s go, let’s go, let’s please never talk about that ever again.”

the custodian at the receiving counter glares at them as lily’s laughter breaks a little too loudly for the library.

 

—

 

they walk to the bus stop together, but only because they both go that way. the city is more bustling than james is used to – he doesn’t usually go out on saturday evenings. he certainly doesn’t hang around in the library part of the city when he does. there’s a shopping mall close by here, a pub, and the church too, so there’s a lot of people. it’s weird for him now to have to squeeze his way a bit through the sidewalks. lily’s hand finds its way on his bicep when the crowd gets particularly dense, and he tries not to be hyperaware of it like some idiot.

there’s a queue for the buses at the stop, their spot falling right outside the waiting shed and under one of the acacia trees lining the highway. it starts drizzling. they both do not have an umbrella.

james starts taking his bomber jacket off, and lily says, “i’m fine! it’s okay.”

but james continues anyway, holds the jacket on top of the both of them, mostly on her side. “you can’t get sick. who’ll edit my photos?”

she smiles. huddles closer to him, so –  _just_ so – he won’t have to hold his jacket out too far, because she’s a considerate person like that. “they don’t really need much editing,” she says. “you looked really handsome, even in that atrocious suit.”

oh god the kraken must really have eaten him in the kiosk earlier today and this is the afterlife. “keep saying things like that and i might actually agree to go naked for you.”

lily glances up at him with one eyebrow raised. james feels like dying. he stutters, “i mean – like, you know, for the program you mentioned – not, like – ”

“i know,” she says, and james feels her shoulders shake against him as she laughs. “it was just funny.”

the queue moves forward. they move with it, james’s jacket over her head following. the drizzle turns to rain, and lily presses herself even closer to him.

“lilacs,” he says, before he can stop himself.

“hm?”

“you, um. you smell like lilacs.”

“oh. yeah. remus recommended me this fabric conditioner – ”

“i knew it.”

“knew what?”

“just that – you smelled a lot like him. i was wondering why.”

lily looks up at him funny. good funny, james likes to think.

he just goes for it: “hey, can i get your number?” but lily has spoken at the same time again, much like earlier today, except this time james didn’t quite hear most of it. he _is_ positive though that it was not her asking him for his number. he swallows. “just for, you know, in case you need me again for a project, or… sorry, what did you say? you said something.” because what she said just registered in his brain, and he _must_ have misheard it.

but she’s shaking her head now. her smile has… wilted, sort of, or maybe he’s just imaginging it. should he have not asked for her number? shit. “yeah, sure,” she says, fishing her phone out of her pocket. he wonders why. she starts going through her contacts. he wonders why even more. you don’t look through your contacts for your own number. maybe she doesn’t have her own memorized?

“sorry, did you just ask me what jeanne marchbanks smelled like?” he asks, because that’s what he thinks he heard her say, and it doesn’t make any sense. “i didn’t catch it, sorry.”

“i did,” she says. she hands him her phone. “forget it though. it’s a weird question.”

it _is_ a weird question. “i haven’t the slightest what jeanne marchbanks smells like,” james answers – wondering, _wondering –_  as he takes his own phone out with his free hand. lily reaches up a hand to help him hold up the jacket over them. “um, this is jeanne’s number,” says james, realizing halfway through copying the digits.

“yes, it is.”

“i, um… why are you giving it to me?”

she makes a face. “didn’t you – wait, what did you say?”

“your number.” he laughs nervously. maybe he should stop. maybe she doesn’t want to give him her number. “sorry, it’s okay, you don’t have to give it to me, really. i just thought – ”

“no, no, you were asking for _my_ number?”

“yes?”

“oh my god.” she laughs. “i thought you – god, sorry. i thought you asked for _jeanne’s_.”

“what? why would i ask for jeanne’s? i was asking for yours.” he’s laughing with her now. it sounds mildly hysterical.

“i see, i see. sorry. give me your phone.”

he hands the thing to her, watches her put her number in.

“you were just – staring at her all day,” she says as she types. she saves her number as _evans_. “and at the library, you… so i just thought…” she trails off.

“oh, no, she was just stressing me out. _all day._ she kept standing on things she shouldn’t be standing on, and i was kind of just waiting for the moment she’ll fall – not _hoping_ for it, i swear, i just – i was very anxious with her on the brink of toppling _so near me_ , and it was just _bound_ to happen. at the library? with those paperbacks, like, what did she think would – ” he stops because lily’s index finger is on his lips. her finger is a bit wet – both of them are half-drenched by the rain by now, really; the poor jacket can only do so much. james’s heart stutters worse than his tongue just did.

it feels like forever, the time they spend just like that, staring at each other with her finger on his lips. she seems surprised herself that she did that just now. he feels the absurd urge to bite it. just – for something to do. he doesn’t though. that’d probably be worse than having to look like an ancient sparkling alien cowboy in front of her. or accidentally picking up a book on the general hows of sex.

the moment breaks when the woman behind lily groans, shoving them both away with her paperbags, “will you two take this elsewhere? the line has moved _ten years ago_ and you’re still both here looking like some poster for a romcom version of the notebook.”

lily laughs, and james laughs with her, pretending wholeheartedly like the thought of kissing lily in the rain with her legs around his waist didn’t just shoot up his brain like a fireworks show right now.

“coffee?” lily asks him, after they’ve apologized to the woman, left the queue, and run to the nearest passable shelter. “i’ll make you your lattes some other time, but i can buy you one now? as a thank-you?”

“i – yeah. sure.”

she looks left and right down the highway. “i wonder which coffee shop will let us in, soaked like this.”

“sirius.”

“black?”

“yeah. the one you worked in last summer? he’d let us in.”

lily blinks at him. “sirius _owns_ that shop? i worked for sirius black last summer?”

“oh. yeah. he inherited it last year from a rich uncle… remus never mentioned? didn’t you see him always hang around there?”

“no! he never said – i did always see him. i thought he was remus’s boyfriend or something.”

“a common misconception.”

“what was your excuse then?”

james pretends to be too busy booking a ride on his phone. “what do you mean?” he knows exactly what she meant.

“remus worked there. sirius owned it. why were _you_ always there?”

“i liked – ” he was going to say ‘i liked _the lattes’._ smoothly, he hoped, but that probably will not be the case. the only smooth thing he ever did around lily was to slip on horse shit once at an out-of-town interschool convention. he wishes that was code for something. it’s not.

but he catches her eye, now, and he sees it there – he sees her expecting exactly that. _i liked the lattes._ he sees the beginning of a cheeky grin on the corners of her lips, and – and he wants to catch her off guard for once, so he shifts himself a bit, looks her dead in the eye, and says, “i like you.”

her eyes widen. james feels a sense of accomplishment. then she’s scrambling for something in her bag, taking out her camera, and then snapping a photo of him. she turned off the flash, so james is grateful, but also – “ _what_.”

“sorry,” she says, a bit breathless. she doesn’t put the camera back in her bag. she straightens the cam strap and hangs it around her neck. “permission to unofficially take pictures of you from here on out?”

“um. sure?”

“yeah?”

james licks his lips. “can i ask why?”

“documentation,” she says, “for the day my crush told me he likes me.”

oh.

_oh._

the rain stops all of a sudden, and some people around them actually whoop for it.

james whoops with them, but for a totally different reason.


End file.
